[UPDATE] Collection of Essays: Buddhism and Literature

This is an extended deadline for the book collection, Encountering Buddhism in Twentieth-Century British and American Literature. We are compiling an edition of essays which will contribute to a coherent and critical examination of British and American literature's engagement with Buddhism in the twentieth century. We aim to show how twentieth-century literature has been influenced by Buddhism, and has been a major factor in bringing about Buddhism's increasing spread and influence in the West. Buddhism's influence on a range of key literary texts will be examined in the context of those societies' evolving modernity. Due to the large number of abstracts examining the Beat poets, we are particularly looking for essays which examine literature between 1900 and 1945, as well as post 1970. Writers discussed may include T. S. Eliot, Hermann Hesse, Virginia Woolf, Salinger, Iris Murdoch, Maxine Hong Kingston, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi etc. Suggestions of other writers would be welcomed. Texts may also include film, writers in translation from mainland Europe, and non-literary writers, who influenced literary authors. The book covers the period from 1900 to the present day, and is divided into three chronological sections representing the historical phases of Buddhism's reception in the West: 1900-1939, 1939-1970, 1970 to the present. Chapters are informed by current theoretical perspectives from philosophy, psychoanalysis, postcolonial studies, and religious studies. What emerges is that Buddhism influenced literature, and that literature fashioned the Buddhism that flowed into western societies. Please send a 500 word abstract and a brief biography by 28th February 2011.We are likely to ask for the completed chapters by 31 December 2011. The editors are Dr Lawrence Normand (English Literature, Middlesex University, UK) whose publications are on Renaissance and twentieth-century literature, including Harticles on James Hilton's Lost Horizon (Buddhist Studies Review), and W. H. Auden and Orientalism (Modern Philology, forthcoming); and Dr Alison Winch (English Literature, Middlesex University) who researches on eighteenth-century travel writing, sexuality, and postfeminism.